“I hope Polly’s all right at Aunt Tina’s,” she spoke, mostly to herself. She remained troubled, staring at the jungle as it flew by on their left. She thought of their uncomfortable bug-infested time in that place and then once again felt a sense of alarm, remembering the original purpose of their mission.
“Professor, what about the plant!!? What about my mother!?”
“It’s all right, Samantha,” The Professor tried to calm her. He pulled something out from under one of the boat’s seats. It was one of their backpacks.
“How–how did you–”
“Get this?” The Professor chuckled. “You can do amazing things with time travel, you know. I simply transported myself to the coordinates of your three confiscated wrist-communicators–to you it would have been last night. I used a stun-gun on the single guard they left with your belongings–rather a tense moment for me, I should say! But I gathered up everything, the backpacks, wrist-communicators and what have you, and transported back to the lab. Actually, I dropped everything off there–this pack is full of sandwiches–delicious turkey and cranberry chutney, from the Carnegie Deli. Would you like one?” He reached into the pack and pulled out a very tasty-looking sandwich, offering it to her.
“Uh–sure,” Samantha responded, stunned. The Professor handed out sandwiches to everyone, and the group devoured them hungrily, although Brianna was still out like a light.
“I couldn’t risk leaving everything there,” Smythe continued, chewing a bite of his own sandwich. “Though I still believe that Jordan can’t physically interact with things in other times, the Slanes did somehow manage to synthesize a poison from that very plant that I sent you after, so they have some sort of... means to achieve such things. I don’t know–perhaps they instructed one of the natives to preserve some of the plant somehow and went to collect it from a specific spot a thousand years later. They are a clever lot, too, you know–and no doubt at least as well-equipped as we are.
“In any case, I certainly didn’t want them to have the communicators, or the ‘chalk.’ It may, I believe, have something to do with their inability to time-travel as effectively as we can. And, of course, I needed the plant. I think I’ve extracted the basic essence of an antidote, Samantha–I shall get back to work on refining it as soon as we get back, I promise.”
“I, uh, um–thanks,” Samantha said earnestly, overcome with a moment of emotion at the thought of seeing her mom again, awake and well. She was still pretty stunned at The Professor’s extreme effectiveness, as well as by the tense and bizarre events of the past day or two.
On their left, (Samantha couldn’t remember if this was “port” or “starboard” in nautical terms), the jungle began to thin and gave way to what looked like the beach of a familiar desert area, most likely near to where Alpha Team had arrived in this time. Marvin eased up on the throttle and slowly began guiding the boat to shore. It grazed some rocks as they pulled into a sort of shallow cove and the jostling woke Brianna, who opened her eyes and immediately let out a blood-curdling scream. The others quickly made to comfort her, stroking her hair and quietly reassuring her that they had, in fact, been rescued, and that they were no longer about to die a grisly death. She gradually began to accept this, reluctantly allowing herself to be helped out of the boat and onto the desolate-looking shore.
It was here that The Professor informed them that they must part ways. They would have to walk a mile or two to get back to the bleak slab of rock that held their ‘magic’ footprints, apparently still their only viable means of return to their own time. The Professor would have to pilot the boat back to his point of entry, the return to which was considerably more complicated. He had transported the boat, parachute and all, to a high cliff top just outside the natives’ hidden village and had propelled it over the edge by means of a modified trailer. The motorized trailer, he had related to them, had then plummeted into the gulf below, whereupon a special polymer he had coated it with would have its chemical properties activated by contact with saltwater, causing the entire thing to dissolve within hours. This assured that no evidence of the thing from the future would be left in this primitive time, though the boat itself presented its own problem in this respect.
The Professor had, purportedly, somehow got boat and trailer into the time-machine room, which sounded impossible. He had shrugged off further questions about this feat, saying that there wasn’t time to explain it to them. He did have a plan to destroy the vessel as well, in a presumably similar manner, and acknowledged that it would not be making the trip back home with him. It was a mystery that Alpha Team could only ponder, at least for the moment.
The girls, (and even Marvin to some extent) remained concerned about how The Professor would get back to the cliff-top, but at this, too, he smiled and assured them that he would have no problem doing so, patting something in the boat that looked very much like an astronaut’s rocket-backpack. Samantha looked at Marvin and they grinned at each other. Suki and Brianna smiled too, and they all waved to their undoubtedly resourceful leader as he spun the boat around and sped out of sight.
The trek back to their footprints was hot and tiring, as expected, though it was earlier in the day than it was on the day that they had arrived, and so at least somewhat cooler. They also were mercifully free of the extra weight of their backpacks, for which they were all very grateful. Brianna in particular was in much higher spirits and hardly complained at all, which everyone was equally appreciative of.
Marvin kept checking a compass that The Professor had given him, eyeing the disturbingly homogenous horizon carefully as they went. It was only an hour or so before they came to an area that looked at least somewhat familiar to everyone in the party, and ‘Dr. Marvy’ instructed them all to split up and begin looking for the slab of rock upon which they had materialized a couple of days earlier. He passed out the wrist-communicators, which The Professor, in his wisdom, had been thoughtful enough to bring back and leave with them, and instructed each party member to signal if any of them came upon the correct spot.
It wasn’t long before the devices squawked with Suki’s voice, excited that she had been the one to find the glowing tracks they sought. The others turned around and quickly made for her location, arriving some minutes later.
There they were–four sets of footprints, glowing a bright blue in the sun of late morning, their salvation. The girls huddled around them, then hugged each other in an unspoken acknowledgment of all they had been through in the past forty-eight hours. Marvin, too, smiled and put on a look of relief that no one had seen on his face for a while. They held hands and stepped into their respective tracks, each saying a silent goodbye to the ancient world that had been their home for the past two days, and with a dazzling blue fizzle of light and temporal energy, vanished from where they had stood.
*
The feeling in Cindy Smart’s hospital room was one of nervous anticipation. Though nearly a dozen people stood around her bed, everyone maintained a sort of hush, fingers crossed. After two days of conferencing between Professor Smythe and Dr. Amesbury (The physician assigned to Cindy’s case), they had administered The Professor’s lab-synthesized antidote. At first the doctor had been very skeptical, but after a few trips to The Professor’s lab with an accompanying colleague, he had concluded that Smythe’s science was sound, that his synthesized antidote could only help and not worsen Cindy’s condition, and that it was in fact within the law to administer it with a signature from an immediate family member. Aunt Tina supplied this, reluctantly, after many assurances from Samantha, Professor Smythe and Dr. Amesbury, and so the injection had been given that morning.
It was now close to noon and there were as yet no signs of the antidote working. Around the bed stood all the members of Alpha Team, Jason, Todd, Aunt Tina, The Professor and a few doctors and/or med students. The Professor looked the most nervous–he had literally been awake for days working on perfecting the serum and probably felt largely responsible for the whole of the
situation anyway. He had become angry at himself several times during setbacks in the antidote’s development, wishing he had been able to figure out how to defeat the Slanes’ time-bubble blocking devices–it would have been so much easier to go back and prevent Cindy from ever having been poisoned in the first place. It was a study to which he decided he must devote a lot of time to in the near future.
“There!” Samantha shout-whispered. Cindy’s fingers had twitched. “You all saw that, right? I’m not seeing things?” Everyone in the room nodded, and even if Samantha wasn’t sure whether or not to believe her own eyes, the issue was rendered moot when Cindy’s whole body stirred and she took a deep breath. The crowd of onlookers was completely on edge.
Suddenly, Cindy gasped a deep, panicky breath and sat straight up in her hospital bed, almost ripping the I.V. tube out of her arm.
“Mom!” Samantha yelled, tears in her eyes.
“Mom?” Todd echoed.
“Oh–Samantha? Todd? Jason–” she looked around her, dazed, and tried to piece together where she was and why.
“Where am I? What–why am I ... in a... hospital? What happened? Is everyone all right?” She was obviously quite confused, very disoriented and more than a little scared. They all did their best to calm her, took turns hugging her while Dr. Amesbury checked her pulse and breathing and then tried to explain what exactly had happened to her.
The official explanation, compiled by the N.Y.P.D., had been that Cindy had been ‘drugged’ by some twisted, drug fiend concert-goer, though no one had ever heard of or seen a drug such as the one they found in her bloodstream. The F.B.I. and D.E.A. had even been called in to speak with all the witnesses, which in itself was frightening. It was indeed a good thing that their adventure into the distant past had only taken up an hour or two of present time, for almost immediately upon returning Samantha was requested for interviews by both Federal agencies. Though she wasn’t the best liar, she had managed to mostly plead ignorance, and the government ‘experts’ were more than happy to try to explain the incident themselves. Presumably they were now out looking for some previously unknown drug and the massive criminal organization that surely must surround it.
To make this Fed-preferred story more believable, The Professor had also supplied the agencies with some of his synthesized antidote and formula for creating it, for study. He had been momentarily concerned that they would somehow be able to concoct their own poison from it, which might be employed questionably in the area of intelligence missions, but then remembered that there wasn’t any of the actual plant left and doubted they could completely artificially synthesize the necessary chemicals without it, at least in the next decade or so. Still, it made him nervous about the possibility of adversely affecting the future.
Another result of all this was that there was now also a federal agent in Cindy’s hospital room, who had until now sat quietly, almost invisibly in the corner in a chair. It was a woman, in fact, named Agent Stiles, whose purpose here was supposedly to record and judge the efficacy of Professor Smythe’s antidote, as well as to continue questioning in the ongoing investigation. As Cindy regained consciousness and began catching up, Agent Stiles commenced typing calmly but with sizzling speed on her portable laptop computer. Stopping occasionally to ask questions of The Professor, the doctors and Jason, she embodied a feeling of confidence and composure that Samantha greatly admired. Every now and then Stiles would catch Samantha looking at her and would smile. Samantha blushed, turning back to her mother.
“Really,” Cindy was saying to the doctors examining her, obviously adjusting nicely, “I feel fine. I just want a shower and to go back to my own house.”
“You’re welcome to take a shower here, Ms. Smart,” Dr. Amesbury offered, gesturing toward the bathroom that was attached to her hospital bedroom. “But we need to monitor you, I’m afraid, for just one more day. We need to do a few more tests and make sure all your vitals are stable, over a twenty-four hour period. And, if you feel... up to it, Agent Stiles from the F.B.I.’s Manhattan field office would like to ask you some questions.” Cindy looked over at Agent Stiles, who smiled and waved her pen in an unobtrusive self-introduction.
“Oh. Um, sure, I guess. Maybe, uh, a little later.”
“That’s fine, Ms. Smart,” Agent Stiles replied. “I’m just going to go get some lunch. I’ll be back later this afternoon, if you feel more like chatting. Glad you’re feeling better.” Her tone was cheery in an honest-sounding way.
“Thanks,” Cindy acknowledged, perhaps slightly uncomfortable.
The group of spectators gradually left the hospital after various well-wishings, returning to their respective homes or places of work, all but the immediate family, which now consisted of Samantha, Todd, Aunt Tina and Jason. Agent Stiles returned, mid-afternoon, and gently put to Cindy the many questions that the F.B.I. apparently had to ask her. Though she was very polite and amiable, she asked a bit too much about The Professor for Samantha’s liking. Samantha played along, trying to act surprised at some things and casually dismissing others; she hoped her contributions to the federal investigation were significantly misleading, believably ignorant-sounding and not overly dramatic. It was hard to gauge Agent Stiles’ reactions, and Samantha decided to inform The Professor of the government’s sudden and specific interest in him (assuming he didn’t already know) at the earliest opportunity.
“And so, this... Professor friend of yours managed to synthesize an antidote for this unknown poison, or drug, in under a week?”
“Thank God!” Cindy said. “I guess it pays to surround oneself with well-equipped geniuses, even if I never was quite one myself.”
“The Professor’s really smart,” Samantha agreed, playing dumb. “He’s shown me how to do Carbon-14 dating, and spec-tral-a-nal-y-sis... ” she trailed off, trying to sound as if she were struggling with the words. Cindy gave her daughter a strange look, wondering why she was pretending to not be able to pronounce words that she’d said a hundred times; her daughter was no dummy. Samantha hoped the agent hadn’t noticed the look and kicked herself mentally.
“Is that so?” Stiles smiled and raised an eyebrow. “Well, anyone that good we could certainly use in the F.B.I. Where exactly did he get the plant sample that he was able to extract the necessary chemicals from?”
“I have no idea,” Cindy mused. Samantha shrugged, hopefully not looking guilty.
“That plant’s been extinct for a thousand years,” the agent offered provocatively. Samantha exchanged a quizzical look with her mother.
“I don’t know,” Cindy repeated honestly. “I mean, the museum’s got hundreds of fossils–thousands even. Plants, animals, up to, oh, I don’t know–three hundred million years old. Maybe he squeezed it out of one of those.” Samantha smiled inwardly while outwardly nodding. Good answer, Mom! She thought.
Agent Stiles made a bit of a crooked pout and raised her eyebrows, looking downward. It did seem the most plausible explanation.
“All right,” she closed her laptop and smiled. “Just one more question, then–and I hope you don’t find it too weird–we just have to look at all the angles.”
“Okay,” Cindy said.
“Do you have any reason at all to believe that Professor Smythe would want to hurt you or your family?”
“No!” Cindy almost laughed. “I’ve known Ainsley for years! I mean, I know he’s a bit odd and all–geniuses usually are, don’t you think? He’d never harm a fly, though, really. He–he used to always ask if we had any scones back when I still worked in concessions,” she said the word ‘scones’ in a mock-British accent. “And Samantha’s been learning all sorts of interesting science things from him for the last two years or so–sometimes working a bit too hard at it, if you ask me, picking up some of his absent-mindedness and forgetting to call her mother,” she eyed her daughter sternly, privately referring to Samantha’s ‘missing week.’ “But no, no. He would never hurt us, never. In fact I’m eternally grateful for what he’s done
for me today.”
“Of course,” Stiles smiled again. “I wouldn’t think he would. He seems like a very gentle man. It’s just that, at present, we know of no one else who’s manufactured anything, drug poison or antidote, from this extinct plant. You do see the need for us to be curious about him?”
“Mmmm,” Cindy nodded. It was strange indeed. The whole thing was strange, though. Her whole life seemed very odd lately, and she had to admit to herself that all the strange happenings had either surrounded her daughter or Professor Smythe. It made her head hurt to think about it all now, though, and she sighed and closed her eyes.
After Agent Stiles had departed (everyone having been left with one of her business cards), the family made their plans for the next few days.
It was decided that Todd and Samantha (and Polly) would spend one more night at Aunt Tina’s. It was Sunday night, and Tina had to work early Monday morning, so the siblings said an early goodnight to their mother and left her to spend some quality time with Jason, who was, despite his unfortunate averageness, turning out to be a real hero in everyone’s book.
Polly was beyond ecstatic to see Samantha. Between her time at the hospital and the museum, the junior adventurer had hardly seen her faithful canine companion at all in the last week. To Samantha it had seemed even longer, having spent an entire two days in a completely different world in the space of an hour–thinking of it like that was weird. She had had something like a seventy-two-hour day in there somewhere–Friday, she guessed it had been. Of course, time away from your favorite person is always very, very long for any self-respecting dog, and Polly smothered Samantha with dozens of sloppy, wet kisses, sproinged all over her like a maniac and wagged her stumpy little terrier tail at amazing speeds.
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